Characteristics of Top Spending Households Occupation Type
August 30,
2019 by Laurie Northington in General 
A snapshot of today’s top-spending furniture consumers looks to be high-earning married couples, in their late 30s and early 40s with young children, living in urban areas. Using data from the 2017 Consumer Expenditure Survey, this is the third factoid in a series of four factoids delving into key household characteristics – age, income, marriage/children status, occupation, population, and region.
Occupation Type
By far, managers and professionals, with their higher incomes, had the highest average annual expenditure at $740, 41 percent more than the second highest spender, construction workers and mechanics. Construction workers and mechanics spent an annual average of $523 in 2017, slightly more than self-employed workers at $516.
Not only do managers and professionals spend the most on furniture annually, this group also comprises a substantial portion of the U.S. workforce controlling 35.5 percent of total furniture expenditures. Retired Baby Boomers are second, with 16.9 percent of sales. The occupation category that controls the third largest segment of the industry - technical, sales and clerical workers – contains some of the lowest spenders per household at $476 annually; however, their sheer numbers put their industry presence at 13.8 percent of total dollars. Service workers, also among the lowest in expenditures at $407 still represent 10.5 percent of industry sales.
Source: Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017, Bureau of Labor Statistics, which in 2017 calculated at a ratio of .63 versus Personal Consumption Expenditures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (see methodology box below “ Methodology: The CE versus the PCE”